Author: QZAP

World AIDS Day – 2024

Fight AIDS!! ACT UP KCOn this World AIDS Day I’m thinking about my deceased friends and the power of paper and toner. If there was a number one reason I started making zines in 1992 it was because I got involved with Milwaukee’s chapter of ACT UP. As a bebe queer activist who wanted to teach my peers about better sexual (and overall) health, one of the best ways to communicate in that pre-internet era was through print.

So we did. We made zines and handed out rubbers and flyers with instructions on how to put them on. We talked about sex, and we danced, and we shouted and we put up stickers and wheat pasted and danced more. And we zapped politicians, and pharmaceutical companies, and died in the streets and locked down in offices… and we danced. And some of us got older, and learned more about harm reduction, and intersectionality, and our queer history, and are able still to dance (sometimes, and maybe in different ways, and still…) And some of us didn’t.

Flyer from the 1992 RNC that says “150,000 Dead from AIDS. Stop This Monster” with picture of president George H.W. Bush.On any given day I mostly don’t care what my boss, or my family of origin and mishpucha, or a bunch of random fundie assholes think about me and what we’re doing here. But I do wonder what these ghosts would say. Would they be proud of us? These queer older siblings who would see that both science and society have come so far, and yet we’re battling the same bigotry – the homo- and trans- and bi-phobia, the same racism and poverty and classism that has allowed this dumb fucking syndrome to fester and spread for 40+ years. Would they be proud of who WE are, this collective of folks who want to preserve this history of print and all of the people whose stories and lives are spilled out among the pages because they taught us that we and our love and our bodies and our pleasure is worth fighting for?

I would like to believe so, but some days I really just don’t know.

xoMilo

International Zine Month 2023!

Poster for International Zine Month 2023. Text of the poster is in the post.Happy International Zine Month! Every year our friend Alex Wrekk, who started IZM, puts out a list of daily activities for the month of July that are zine related. This year’s poster was designed in collaboration with their pal Zineville and their mascot Mr Chompy.

Below is the text of the poster, which can be downloaded from here. Have a very happy and safe IZM! Make cool zines and share them! Send us LGBTQ+ zines to include in the archive!

  1. What is a zine? Make a definition in your own words and share it.
  2. Zine Rewind! Re-read your favorite zines, and share why you love them so!
  3. Cook 1 recipe or complete 1 DIY project found in a zine!
  4. AmeriZine Day! Explore marginalized voices in the Americas. Buy, share, and read zines that celebrate racial justice and zines written by BIPOC (Black Indigenous and People of Color) from the Americas.
  5. Try a new way if folding a 1 page zine or, create your own.
  6. Zine Pride Day! Explore LGBTOIA+ zines! Вuy, share, & read zines by people of marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities. Check out the Queer Zine Archive Project (HEY, That’s US 😀 )
  7. What’s a zine distro? Educate ourself of what zine distros are, how they operate, and how they pick zines to carry. Support a distro near you!
  8. Look into upcoming zines in events in real life or virtual events that you can attend! When else are you going to be able to attend a zine event in a different city or even country for free?
  9. Buy direct! Do you sell zines online? Update your shop and post a link to it online. Or Buy directly from someone who posts a link to their shop.
  10. RPG zines are a blast!! Find or make your own role play adventure zine!

    Image of an Ouiji Board, but the traditional text has been replaced to say "Sending unbound zines to zine librarians results in seven years of bad metadata" Underneath that there's a silhouette of a stapler and the words "Good Bye"
    Lucky #13: This was the zine superstition that WE made up in 2021!
  11. International Zine Day! Read a zine from a country different from your own.
  12. ZineWiki Day! It’s a wiki just for zines! Add to or update listings to the new and improved zinewiki.com
  13. Make up a zine superstition and share it (skip the 13th issue? Spin 3 times to prevent copier jams? Your best friend reads your zine first?)
  14. ValenZines Day! Give yourself some zine love! • read zines in a bubble bath? Buy some new scissors? Let your zine friends know you care about them.
  15. Free Zine Day! Offer your zine for free online or –if it’s safe to do so where you are – leave zines in public places for strangers to find and enjoy.
  16. Make a list of reasons you love zines and share your list with others!
  17. Make a flyer for yourzine to trade, send out with zine orders & trades.
  18. Zine Trade Day! Ask someone to trade or swap zines with you.
  19. Zine Distro Appreciation Day! Tell people about/order from a zine distro.
  20. Talk about a thing you learned in a zine.”I once read in a zine that…”
  21. Check out YouTube channels & TikTok creators about zines.
  22. Zine Library Day! Search for a zine library in your area and make plans to go someday or contact them about how to include your zine in their collection.
  23. Tell 5 people about zines… The more the merrier!
  24. Teach yourself a new zine skill. Extra points for using a tool you never have before!
  25. Make a zine for a non-profit cause!
  26. Organize your zine collection. Post a SHELFIE online.
  27. Ask a zine friend if they would like to do a split zine or collaboration.
  28. Read or create a mini-comic zine
  29. Write out a list of zine ideas and use a random way of selecting one to make! (D20 dice work great, but get creative!)
  30. Write a letter or online post about your #IZM2023 experience!
  31. HallowZine! Remember zines and zinesters that are no longer with us.

Throughout the month bonuses:
– Read a zine a day
– Do the 24 Hour Zine Thing (make a zine to your skill level in 24 hours)

Black Lesbians in the 70s and Before

Zine of the Gay

Happy Juneteenth everyone! For those who don’t know, Juneteenth is a new federal holiday here in the United States, but has been celebrated by African-Americans since 1866. It commemoratesBlack Lesbians in the 70s and Before – An At Home Tour of the Lesbian Herstory Archives cover the enforced end of slavery in Texas after the Civil War, as Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (issued in 1863, during the height of the war) was limited to states under Union control. Texas, being so far from the rest of the Union and the war, did not have access to the Emancipation and white people in power actively kept the Emancipation Proclamation from enslaved people and African-Americans in general. The holiday takes place on the anniversary of the Union troops arriving in Galveston, Texas and informing everyone that the enslaved people were now free. Since then, this day has been celebrated by African-Americans across the country and became a federal holiday in 2021. If you would like to learn more about Juneteenth from the perspective of African-American scholarship, we recommend looking to the National Museum of African American History & Culture’s online Juneteenth exhibit. To celebrate over here at QZAP, today’s Zine of the Gay is Black Lesbians in the 70s and Before – An At Home Tour At The Lesbian Herstory Archives. 

Originally made for the Lesbians in the 70s conference held by the CUNY Graduate Center in 2010, this zine is a curated look at the black-focused records in the Lesbian Herstory Archives by prominent archivist, librarian, zinester, and lesbian Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz. It’s filled to the brim with newspaper clippings, scans of books and magazines, the records of activist groups, pieces of archival finding aids, academic papers, conference proceedings, calls for writing to academic and creative publications, event flyers, quotes, and notes from Shawn(ta). The zine being made up of collages and notes from Shawn(ta) makes reading it feel like you’re the one in the archive doing research, creating piles of papers and notes around you while you work. 

Echo of SapphoThe records include stories of protests against the arrest of black lesbians defending themselves from assault, statements made in the creation of alternative spaces for black lesbians, definitions of Butches, and most importantly the experiences of black lesbians, many focused on the difficulty of having multiple minority identities. A particularly powerful quote from the zine reads:

We will continue to demand our right to exist as productive, free, equal, black, gay beautiful women… There is a place for us in this society, and we will proudly take it at all costs. Even if it means breaking off from our so-called liberal white sisters and brothers, so-called liberal gay sisters and brothers, so-called liberal black sisters and brothers. Get-it-together, because we are.

-Elandria V. Henderson, 1971

After the records from the archive, the zine gives us records of the archive, including collecting policies, directions on how to create your own special collection, copyright laws, and donor agreement forms. After this section is a fun list readers can write in of “Stuff I’m Gonna Donate to the Archives.” The zine ends with Shawn(ta)’s contact information and a note to readers that they should schedule a consultation and create their own special collections. She says, “We’ll have tea/coffee… it’ll be fun!”

We highly recommend reading this playful yet powerful zine as a part of your Juneteenth celebrations this year, or to connect with this important, often overlooked, history any time of year. 

Kit Gorton is a current intern at QZAP and graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in library science and English, with focuses on archives and media studies. A rather queer Hobbit, Kit is most often seen collecting things (such as leaves, rocks, books and the like) or doting on their cat, Good Omens Written in Collaboration by Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett.

U.S. Kweer Corps

Zine of the Gay

U.S. Kweer Corps, Issue #1, July 2000 Queer Punks, Unite to Fight!! Keeping things radical, today’s Zine of the Gay is U.S. Kweer Corps by friend of the archive Hank Thigpen. Starting in July 2000 and continuing through the early 2000s, Kweer Corps were shorter digests focused on the queer punk scene Hank was observing in Florida. In our archive we have issues #1, #2, #9, and #10.

Kweer Corps #1 includes the Kweer Corps Manifesto, a statement of the issues Hank sees in the punk scene and with queer people. A majority of these issues revolve around the lack of revolutionary spirit in punks and queer people who had been the ones ready to fight for revolution in the past. Hank declares real punk dead, as current punks are more focused on fashion statements and mistreating women at shows than any real political movement, and how other genres of music enjoyed by queer people lack action and purpose. Hank reminds readers that “queers helped create early punk… and kept themselves in every scene and movement in between and STILL havent started fighting for the revolution we’ve been preaching this whole time.” He ends the manifesto with a call to action, saying:

Because I’m ready for MY goddam riot.

Because I cant be the only one.

For these, and for a hundred other day to day reasons, Im a part of the Kweer Corps.

Queer punks, unite to fight!

Hank follows this up in Kweer Corps #2 by talking about the loneliness he experiences as a queer punk, and how he sees other queers at the random punk show but nowhere else. We recommend you read this one for yourselves as the writing here is particularly striking, especially the line: “Straight edge kids and skinheads all know their brothers. Why don’t I know you?” Hank writes about the Kweer Corps as being an alternative to this loneliness that he suspects other queer radicals experience as well through the creation of a community of radical queers across the country.

Cover of U.S. Kweer Corps #9 Image shows a roll of pennies, and the text on the cover reads: “PENNY ROLLS: legal & handy Use electrical or duct tape reinforce ends first! added weight in your fist make the punch so much harder” “I would sooner fuck a dog than let your bigoted bullshit go unpunished.”We then jump to Kweer Corps #9, which starts by showing you how to reinforce a penny roll to add weight to your punches. This issue focuses on physical violence experienced by queer people, challenging what “Your parents told you from the beginning, “Ignore them and they’ll go away.”” Hank encourages hitting back when harassed or beaten up, saying “peaceful resistance doesn’t work against individual attacks.” He states: 

I’m gonna take the knowledge that I will hit back and use it to make myself stronger. I’m gonna think of all the girls and boys who are too small to fight back and I’m gonna get one lick in for them, too.

Hank argues that through fighting back against bigoted, sexist actions, we can start a revolution, and ends the zine by saying, “Instant physical retribution for any attack. Queer punks fight back.”

Kweer Corps #10 is focused on the exclusion of and responses to the Michigan Women’s Music Fest, a festival that stopped in 2015 and only allowed women-born-women into the festival. Hank sees issue both with the exclusionary nature of the festival, and the trans-organized protests that form outside of the festival every year. He writes: “Here’s an idea – instead of spending all that time, energy, and money protesting against women who don’t feel comfortable with things they don’t understand, all to get into a music fest where people like Lucy Blue Trem-bleh headline, why not make our own fuckin weekend of music?” He argues that there are ample resources, a lack of loyalty among the younger women who go, and no monopoly on the performers, so why not? “If we can create our own gender expression, we should be able to create our own shows.” “With all the cute transfolk out there, I would say it’s gonna be her loss, right?”

Kit Gorton is a current intern at QZAP and graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in library science and English, with focuses on archives and media studies. A rather queer Hobbit, Kit is most often seen collecting things (such as leaves, rocks, books and the like) or doting on their cat, Good Omens Written in Collaboration by Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett.

My 2nd Lesbian Coloring Book

Zine of the Gay

As many of the zines we have focused on for the last three Zine of the Gays have been mostly text-based, we wanted to highlight some zines that were more art-focused, and what is more cooperative, comforting, and artistically rule-breaking than a coloring book?

My Second Lesbian Coloring Book CoverMy 2nd Lesbian Colouring Book was created by Sacred Feminine and actually comes from Toronto like our last zine, Shame on Pride!, just a year later in 2006. There is very little text in this zine, but the writing we do have is a request by the creators for completed works from the zine. They say:

We feel that the spirit of art, much like the spirit of sisterhood, is a co-operative one.

Joan Jett Coloring PageIn exchange for the reader’s Sapphic graphics, they offer a “care package including herbal tea and a mix tape” which feels so perfectly lesbian it makes us all warm inside.

The coloring pages include queer women of the past and present who were famous across multiple fields, such as basketball player Sheryl Swoopes, musicians Madonna and Melissa Etheridge (who is pictured on the front cover), comedienne Lily Tomlin, writer Virgina Woolfe, and (actually genderqueer) activist Leslie Feinberg.

The zine ends with the statements “Sisterhood is Powerful!” and “Love is tender, knows no gender.” We hope that you carry these sentiments with you, and if you’re able to print the pages out, have fun coloring!

Kit Gorton is a current intern at QZAP and graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in library science and English, with focuses on archives and media studies. A rather queer Hobbit, Kit is most often seen collecting things (such as leaves, rocks, books and the like) or doting on their cat, Good Omens Written in Collaboration by Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett.

Shame on Pride!

Zine of the Gay

Shame On Pride coverEven though this Zine of the Gay project is inspired by Pride month, we at QZAP want to make sure we look at Pride critically. Today’s Zine of the Gay is Shame on Pride! created by Abuzar in 2005. The original zine was created as a part of Queer Diversity, a community focused on the relationship of radical queers to (at the time) modern day Pride in Toronto. Though this zine is specifically focused on Pride Toronto from almost twenty years ago, the messages are still applicable and we encourage you, dear reader, to keep an eye out for racist, transphobic, sexist, or classist behavior at any Pride celebration you go to this month.

Before even giving a table of contents, the zine starts with newspaper clippings from the New York Post and New York Times recounting the Stonewall riots, reconnecting readers with the reason we have pride in the first place. After the table of contents, Abuzar addresses their readership:

Calling all Radical Queers, Trans People, Youth, Sex Workers, Poly People, Anti-Poverty Activists, & Allies:

Sick and tired of the main streaming of the “Gay Movement”?

Frustrated at being pushed out of and excluded from queer spaces?

Angry at getting kicked out of a queer community we helped create?

… If you’re a pissed off and unapologetic hooker, tranny, gender queer, radical, lived/worked on the streets, or an ally, it’s time to fight back!

They then follow what happened after Stonewall, as white gay people began to push down other sexual and gender minorities in order to assimilate into mainstream culture. Abuzar says that in their pursuit for mainstream acceptance, “It doesn’t matter how many of us are murdered, go missing, or find ourselves excluded, bashed, or beaten. The band plays on like the single minded machine that it was always meant to be.” Pride has now become another part of this single minded machine, becoming a co-opted event “that perpetuates homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, social classism, economic classism, polyphobia, bodyphobia, binary-dominance, sex negativity, erotophobia, ableism, ageism, anti-sexwork sentiment, systemic exclusion … in short, all of those issues that it was meant to address and fight.”

There are also other pieces within the zine that address Stonewall’s origins, the internal oppression in gay culture, and how “more acceptable” queer people “sic cops on “less acceptable” queer people at Pride.” There is also a piece on how the fight for gay marriage “dismisses and ignores the decades-long struggle of feminist movements to abolish or establish progressive alternatives to the marriage system imposed by governments and churches over previous centuries of gendered exploitation, colonization and oppression. Instead, the debate encourages non-heterosexual partners to identify the legitimacy and “equality” of their relationships as the ability for those partnerships to be “permitted” by the same legal and religious authorities which have historically dominated, exploited and excluded women from participation and decisionmaking [sic] roles.” These argumentative pieces all support the majority of the body of the zine, which is focused on alternative queer spaces at 2005 Pride Toronto.

The main point of this zine is that rather than just creating alternative spaces for queer people, we need to also actively resist the co-opting of queer spaces. The body of the zine highlights organizations offering alternative spaces and resisting the co-opting of Pride, with events such as Resist! Rovolt! Celebrate! held by Limp Fist to stand against the corporate sponsors of Pride, Whores And Dykes Unite! organized by the Sex Professionals of Canada which is a march supporting trans people, sex workers, natives, and other POC within the greater Dyke March (a politicized, corporation-free, queer alternative to Pride), as well as the events held by Queer Diversity called the Renegade Community Fair and the Protest Against The Cooptation of Pride, both of which looking to dissent against Pride in the community fair and parade. Abuzar writes about these events, saying:

We refuse to participate in Pride in a manner complicit with their oppression. We refuse to be tokenized by Pride and dissent against it’s marginalization of the queer community.

Kit Gorton is a current intern at QZAP and graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in library science and English, with focuses on archives and media studies. A rather queer Hobbit, Kit is most often seen collecting things (such as leaves, rocks, books and the like) or doting on their cat, Good Omens Written in Collaboration by Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett.

Hot Rods

Zine of the Gay

Hot Rods zine coverFrom the femme herbal transition of The Transgender Herb Garden, we are now transitioning (hehe wink wink) towards Hot Rods, a zine of health resources for “For Folks assigned a Female sex at birth who have strayed from that path” in Oregon. The zine was made by Gender Machine Works, a direct action group serving “female assigned, gender-variant” (or FAGV) people based in Portland, Oregon, and was published in 2002. This is the only zine we have in our digital collection made by Gender Machine Works.

Despite being written with a very specific audience in mind (FAGV people in Portland in 2002), this zine has a lot of incredibly useful, effectively timeless, information. This includes the effects of hormonal testosterone on the body, their information on routine healthcare procedures for AFAB individuals, how to check for breast cancer and do hormone injections safely, safe sex tips, and a wealth of other important knowledge for not just physical, but mental female assigned, gender-variant health.

From a use standpoint, the only downside is that a lot of the information they give is very area-specific and probably outdated. However, looking at it from a historical lens, it gives a lot of information about doctors, groups, and resources that may not be well-documented, making this zine a really important record in Portland queer history. They are also supportive of a multitude of gender identities and are incredibly open to a multitude of viewpoints regarding transitioning.

In a world where transgender healthcare rights are being taken away right in front of us, we feel it’s incredibly important to come together as a community, and know that despite everything we can support each other and find the cracks in the systems restricting us from getting essential care. We feel that this zine is a great example of the queer community doing just that.

Kit Gorton is a current intern at QZAP and graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in library science and English, with focuses on archives and media studies. A rather queer Hobbit, Kit is most often seen collecting things (such as leaves, rocks, books and the like) or doting on their cat, Good Omens Written in Collaboration by Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett.

The Transgender Herb Garden

Zine of the Gay

Hello ! This summer we once again have a cohort of interns working on several projects, one of which includes a month-long research and blogging project called Queer Zine of the Gay. We will be posting just about every other day for ‘Pride Month’ 2023 on a zine within our holdings, which will hopefully be new to even the most experienced zinesters. So join us on this journey through QZAP’s holdings 3-4 times a week, (usually Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) here on the QZAP blog! The first Queer Zine of the Gay is…

The Transgender Herb Garden coverThe Transgender Herb Garden: an MtF guide to disconnecting oneself from big pharma by FlyingOtter is a cottagecore-anarchist zine focused on the use of herbs to help facilitate physical transition rather than relying on pharmaceutical companies. This zine was published in 2009 and upon some supplemental research seems to be one of the few zines made by FlyingOtter. This zine is a one-off, but is also held by other queer zine archives, so it must have circulated well.

FlyingOtter starts by addressing the fact that this is not medical advice, but is rather suggestions on herbs to eat for other MtF people that may help them appear more feminine as the herbs helped her. However, ze suggests that anyone can read this and get advice from it, as “trying different plants and foods will inform you about yourself”.

“As you take the time to sense how it makes you feel , how your body reacts, in its slightest movements and ways — as you come to know your own body, that is the key to transforming it, maintaining it, and healing it.”

Ze recommends eating the herbs raw, though teas also can be useful, as well as finding a good balance for how often you consume them. Ze also suggests switching up the herbs you’re eating, especially if you’re MtF, as “A bio-woman’s biology/hormones change throughout a month, no reason to not do the same.” Some of the herbs ze suggests include sage, fennel, and clover, which are all wonderful nonbinary names. FlyingOtter says that they won’t stimulate breast growth, but will help add fullness to the face and thighs, while helping create an hourglass figure.

Some other zines (page 8) cite this zine as purely anecdotal, which is true, but they also point out the information on transplanting the plants Ze does discuss is rather helpful. We also personally don’t mind how anecdotal the zine is. In reading it we get a much better sense of the person writing it, the environment and feeling that ze carries with zir than information on the plants ze suggests using. But that doesn’t mean we’re not learning anything from FlyingOtter. Ze very clearly has a lot of gardening knowledge, including information about the amount of nitrogen carried by certain seeds that will add to your soil, and where things should be planted depending upon use. Ze also advocates for community herb gardening with female bodied people, and breaking away from the machine of capitalism, which are easy to get behind.

One of the most interesting parts of the zine is where FlyingOtter discusses gender as a construct of capitalism, and looks forward to the day where there is no gender. Seeing this through their perspective we think is rather telling of where the queer community was in regards to nonbinary and agender genders in 2009, and we highly recommend reading it for yourself.

⚠️ ⚠️ Additional Advisory Note!!! If interested in using herbs similarly, lovely reader, you should consult with professional herbalists when embarking on using herbs in a medicinal or health-boosting capacity.

Kit Gorton is a current intern at QZAP and graduate student at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in library science and English, with focuses on archives and media studies. A rather queer Hobbit, Kit is most often seen collecting things (such as leaves, rocks, books and the like) or doting on their cat, Good Omens Written in Collaboration by Neil Gaiman and Sir Terry Pratchett.

Sex Panic! At the Disco – World AIDS Day, 2022

Cover of the zine Sex Panic! circa 1997Today is World AIDS Day, and while we’re not “celebrating”, per se, we are acknowledging the day, and the incredible impact this stupid fucking virus has had on our lives, our friends, our communities, and the whole damn world. In this vein, we present Sex Panic! – The Zine by the fine activists of Sex Panic!

This 40 page, digest size zine from 1997 is a collection of essays about how the anti-sex policies and politics of the 1980s and 1990s (and into the current millennium) have had a huge negative impact on queer communities. While the zine’s focus, at least initially, is on New York City, it’s contents is applicable much more broadly.

This is an incredible document, up there with Diseased Pariah News and How to Have Sex in An Epidemic in terms of DIY community-based communication about AIDS. Essayists include Douglas Crimp*, Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, Allan Bérubé, Lisa Duggan, Alison Redick, and Jim Eigo, among others.

We’ll be bringing this, along with a bunch of other AIDS activist ephemera, to the panel talk that we’re participating in with our friends from Gerber/Hart and Chicago Public Library on Monday, Dec. 5th, 2022.

*Doug Crimp was also one of the authors of AIDS Demo Graphics, which documents the first couple of years of ACT UP visuals, and has been a huge influence on us and scores of queer zine makers around the world.

19 And Non-Stop!

emoji of a pink glazed donutAt the beginning of November we quietly celebrated the 19th anniversary of the launch of qzap.org. Back in 2003 we had no idea that this project would last as long or be as meaningful to so many amazing folks as it has become.

Our quiet way of celebrating is that we’ve just launched the newest version of this site, making the move from Joomla, our CMS of choice for the past decade or so, to WordPress. SO, yay for that! Welcome to the new site, almost like the old site.

As has been the case, we are mostly a labor of love, with no formal affiliations to other institutions. Internally we work on a consensus-based “little-a” Anarchist model for decision-making and getting stuff done. Also, we’re mostly funded by the sale of buttons, zines, occasionally t-shirts, and donations from visitors like you. SO, thanks for supporting us!

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